riety, as might impress the thinking mind with the love and veneration of that Great Being, who, in the most minute parts of his creation, displays such wisdom and benevolence. But if such wisdom and benevolence appear in the exterior decoration of flowers, what superior subjects of admiration will the Contemplative Philosopher discover, when he examines their constituent parts or what may properly be called, the Anatomy of Flowers. In every part he will find a wonderful harmony and concurrence of design, subservient to every end for which the whole was created, and incessantly productive of it.

Before I proceed in this examination of the constituent parts of flowers, it will be necessary to observe, that the modern system of botany, invented by Sir Charles Linné, is called the Sexual System; it being found on a discovery, that there is in vegetables, as well as in animals, a distinction of sexes. This doctrine was very imperfectly known to the ancients. The generality of flowers have been discovered to be hermaphrodite, that is, to contain within them, the characters of both sexes: in one class of vegetables the sexes are divided, and allotted to different flowers on the same plant; in another class, the male flowers grow all upon one plant, and the female upon another. This last circumstance did not escape the observation of the ancients. From the palm-tree, the fruit of which was held in great estimation, they could not but learn, that as the male flowers were upon one tree, and the female upon another, the flowers of the male were necessary to ripen the fruit of the female. That their practice was conformable to this idea, is evident from the account which Herodotus gives, in his first book, of the country about Babylon. The palmtrees there were universally an object of cultivation; and it was common for the inhabitants to assist the

operations of Nature, by gathering the flowers of the male trees, and conveying them to the female. Thus they secured the ripening of the fruit, which otherwise, from unfavorable seasons, or the want of a proper intermixture of the trees of each sex, might have been precarious, or greatly deficient at least in the expected quantity.

It is rather surprising that this discovery did not lead the ancients, acute and penetrating as they were, to discover the entire process of Nature in the propagation of the various species of vegetables; and yet it does not appear that they ever went beyond this obvious remark upon the palm-tree, and some similar ideas concerning the fig. Indeed, from what they saw of these plants, they had conceived an opinion, that all other plants were likewise male and female; but this opinion was groundless, the far greater part of plants having hermaphrodite flowers. It is evident, therefore, that what they discovered of the palm and fig was only a just conjecture, but not founded on any knowledge of the anatomy of flowers, either in those trees, or in any others.

The doctrine of the sexes of vegetables conti-nued in this obscure state almost to the end of the 17th century; so many ages having passed away before the moderns were more enlightened in this respect than the ancients. The honour of having first suggested the true sexual distinction in plants is due to Sir Thomas Millington, the learned Savilian professor; from whose hints Dr. Grew was led to his observations on this subject, in his Anatomy of Plants, published in 1682. After this, Moreland and Bradley, among the English; Camerarius and Blair among the Scots; and Geoffroy, Vaillant, and Jussieu, among the French; pursued their researches and experiments with such success, as to ascertain this discovery

beyond the possibility of doubt. And, finally, SirCharles Linné, the celebrated Swede, founded on this discovery that system of botany which is now universally received.

Agreeably to this system I shall now proceed to treat of the constituent parts of a perfect flower. Of these, which are seven in number, the first is called the calyx, empalement, or cup. It is the termination of the outer bark of the plant, which, after accompanying the trunk or stem through all its branches, breaks out with the flower. It has received different appellations, according to the circumstances with which it is attended. In the rose, and some other flowers, the calyx consists of those outside green leaves which inclose the flower in the bud. In others, it consists of one funnellike cup, as in polyanthuses aud auriculas. corn or grass, it is called the husk. In the willow or filbert, it forms the catkins, or that assemblage of imperfect flowers which hangs from the tree in the manner of a rope, or cat's tail. In all these varieties the use of the empalement is to defend the young tender flower while yet in its blooming But flowers that are very robust, as the tulip, crown-imperial, and lily, have no empale

state.

ment.

In

The second object in the structure of flowers is the corolla, or foliation, which is the termination of the inner bark continued to, and accompanying, the fructification, in this new form of painted leaves. The leaves of which the corolla consists, are called petals, to distinguish them from the green leaves of the plant with which they might otherwise be confounded. Linné defines the petal to be a corolaceous covering to the flower; meaning that it incloses and protects it in the manner of a corolla or wreath. In these petals, which constitute the most conspicuous part of the flower,

not only the most exquisite beauty and luxuriant colours are observable, but also the very curious manner in which they are folded in the empalement, before they are expanded. The use of the corolla is the same as that of the calyx, serving as an inner work of defence for the parts it incloses, as the calyx, which is usually of a stronger texture, does for an outer one.

Among the varieties observable in the corolla, there is one part, called the nectarium, which has been but recently distinguished, having been confounded by former botanists with the petals. Linné defines it to be the part which bears the honey, and belonging to the flower only. This part affords a wonderful variety in the manner of its appearance. In some plants it is very large, as in the daffodil and columbine ; in the former of which the cup, and in the latter the horns, are nectaria. In others it is scarce discoverable even with glasIn some plants it is united with, and makes part of the petals; in others, it is detached from them. Its shape and situation are also as various. Its use is not known, unless the supposition of its secreting the honey may be depended upon.

ses.

The stamina form the third constituent part in flowers. Linné defines them as an entrail of the plant, designed for the preparation of the pollen, otherwise called the farina foecundans, or fertilizing dust. Each single stamen consists of two parts; first, the filament, or thread, vulgarly called the chive, which serves to elevate the anthera, apex, or summit, and at the same time connects it with the flower; secondly, the anthera itself, which contains within it the fertilizing dust, and, when come to maturity, discharges the same. The pollen is a fine dust, secreted within the anthera, and destined for the impregnation of the germen or bud. It is, indeed, the immediate or

gan of fertilization in the seed of plants, and where this is wanting to fertilize the seed, such seed will never produce a plant. A remarkable experiment to prove this occurs in the 47th volume of the Philosophical Transactions. There was a great palm-tree in the garden of the royal academy at Berlin, which flowered and bore fruit for thirty years, but the fruit never ripened, and when planted, it did not vegetate. The palm-tree, as before observed, is one of those in which the male and female parts of generation are upon different plants. There being no male plant in this garden, the flowers of the female were never impregnated by the farina of the male. At Leipsic, twenty German miles from Berlin, was a male plant of this kind, from which, in April 1749, a branch of male flowers was procured, and suspended over the female ones. This experiment was so successful, that the palm-tree produced more than a hundred perfectly ripe fruit, from which they had eleven young palms. On repeating the experiment, the next year, the palm-tree produced above 2000 ripe fruit. This experiment fully establishes the fact, attested by the ancients, concerning the palm-tree, which some, perhaps, may have regarded as fabulous; and as the fructification in other vegetables, although it may differ in particular circumstances, has yet, in general, an evident conformity with that of the palm-tree, in respect to the parts supposed to be the organs of generation, which are discoverable either on the same, or on a separate flower, in all but one particular class, called Cryptogamia, in which they are too minute for observation; so, from this single experiment, an argument may be deduced by analogy, for the confirmation of the whole sexual hypo

thesis.

If we take one of these antheræ, or apices, from